Video_TS to H.264 yields messed up H.264 movie

[Mildew]

I've never used ffmpegX to encode to H.264 before. Normally, I use Handbrake or D-Vision for my MP4s because they allow me to add a second audio track. But last night I though I'd give it a try.

I ripped the main track of a 1 hour 40 min movie using MacTheRipper. I dragged the Video_TS file into ffmpegX and set the following options:

h.264 mencoder preset
640x272 resolution
128 AAC audio
x264 deblock
Use CABAC
B-Frames
QMin=Qmax=22
Constant Bitrate disabled.
Single-pass

Now, from what I read, QMin=QMax=22 (VBR) should yield a very good quality MP4. I ran ffmpegX overnight and this morning I had my MP4.

It was only 512 MB. Hmm, I expected a high quality MP4 from a VOB source (1h 40m) to be around 1-1.5 GB based on my experiences with Handbrake and D-Vision.

I opened the MP4 in Quicktime and hit play. The first few frames were blank white and once the movie started, I noticed that the audio was out of sync. I opened "Movie Properties" to read what the overall bitrate was. According to Quicktime Player, the video bitrate is 0.00 kbits/sec. There was no bitrate information. Okay, that's really weird. I selected the video track and clicked on "Other Settings" in Movie Properties. The "Language" was reported as 32767. I've never heard of that language before.

So something is really messed up here. Did I select the wrong settings in ffmpegX or is ffmpegX's H.264 implementation still very much a work in progress?

[tbluewater]

I'm not 100% sure, but when the video compression is H.264 and if you choose to export video in MP4 or AVI, that could happen. Try exporting video in MOV with XviD.

[GMaq]

Hi,
I realize you're a Mac user but are you sure it's not QT that is your problem?? My latest QT Pro update for Windows is flakin' out all over the place, Even MPEG Streamclip is not handling MPEG files like it did prior to the upgrade, and I am using the MPEG-2 Plug-In. I realize this is Windows but perhaps the core application is the same. Something to check out anyway.

[live4ever]

QT can't handle everything in the part10 spec (I think CABAC might be the problem) try disabling it.

Also how does the file play in the newest VLC or MPlayer?

[Mildew]

It might be CABAC because MPlayer and VLC correctly display the bitrate information, although the MP4 still goes out of sync. Quicktime Player also doesn't correctly handled AVC MP4s with two or more audio tracks. It plays the last track first! I have no idea why. VLC, once again, gets it right.

I'm going to try another encoding without CABAC.

[Mildew]

It wasn't CABAC at all. It was B-Frames. Enabling B-Frames resulted in a flaky AVC MP4. Quicktime won't show the bitrate.

So the question now would be, why do B-Frames confuse Quicktime Player?

[ctwelsh]

Iv'e been following this post but haven't seen any new information as of late. I have been experiencing the same issue when Convert from VIDEO_TS to .H264. Sometimes the audio is just fine whereas others it is out by a frame or two. I turned off Use B-frames and still have a small syncing issue. How can I get it to sync properly?


Thanks

[apollo8fan]

I've tried using Mencoder for VIDEO_TS folders and have given up. The movie studios throw in weird things like double frames, switching frame rates and the like. I believe these cause mencoder to drop frames, but the audio isn't being dropped. I've found that when the audio/video are out of sync, it's always the audio lagging the video at about the rate equivalent to the number of dropped video frames. BTW, dropped frames messages can be seen in the Process Information window.

[ctwelsh]

Yeah, I agree with that. I have been recently trying out MPEG Streamclip and it has been able to convert from VOBs to .H264 with much better results. Given that it checks for dropped frames and can piece split .vob files I have had no audio sync problems. However, I do like the video results from Mencoder better at this point.